He and I
by NaijaChiqa
Summary: Future Fic. Kaitlin recollects her life... includes the Cooper Family and Summer. Please read and review


I do not own the OC and have no affiliation with Fox.  
  
This is a Kaitlin fic.   
  
A/N: I've decided to try a story with less dialogue. However, I suck at introspective pieces -I'd rather just tell the story. Anyway, please tell me if you like (or hate) it. Thanks  
  
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June 29th, 2019  
  
"Kaitlin, I don't want to hurry you, but we still need to fix your hair and make-up," my sister, Marissa, called from the other side of the door. I'd always known that the day would be hectic but no one ever tells you how much. I sat on the bed and looked around my childhood room. It held so many memories that I wasn't quite sure I was ready to let go... but I knew I had to. I plopped on my queen sized bed, drinking in the smells and trying to savor every moment I could. The sheets still smelled fresh. I sat up and bounced on it but felt something underneath the mattress. Then I remembered. I immediately jumped off, got on my knees and pulled out a box. It was an old Louis Vuitton mini-trunk that my mother had given to me when it stopped being exclusive. I tried to pull it open but it was locked. As a child, I'd hidden the key underneath my pillow but as I aged, I'd hid it in a 'safer place.' Except I couldn't remember where.  
  
  
  
"Kaitlin, what's going on? It's like you're giving birth of something over there. Hurry up, we don't have all day here," Summer, my sister's best friend shouted.  
  
"I'm coming, give me a minute." I felt a little guilty because I knew that I shouldn't keep them waiting, but I just had to find that key. I rummaged through all my drawers till I found it in my vanity draw. I quickly stuck it in the keyhole and opened the box. The first thing I saw was an Isis beanie baby. My 3rd grade boyfriend, Fred Walsh, had given it to me on Valentines Day, however, I caught the sneaky bastard passing notes to Briana Adams in homeroom three days later. It would have been nice to say that he was so devastated he later dropped out of school and started digging ditches to make ends meet, but unfortunately, word around town was that he was making a killing in real estate. I pulled out a sheet of paper - it was the first mature love letter I'd received from a secret admirer at the ripe age of thirteen. Even though I'd thought I was Nancy Drew, I'd never figured out who it was. Sometimes, I felt that my sister had just written it to cheer me up during a hard time in my life. I started to read it:  
  
.  
  
Your lips: exciting, enticing, hypnotic my eyes immovable their fullness, unevenness, hue ever bright, so sexy, so juicy begging for a taste  
  
.  
  
I laughed out loud. I couldn't believe that at some point in my life, I'd been impressed by such crap. I kept on reading:  
  
.  
  
uncontrollably conjuring images in my mind   
  
images so real, creating feelings inside of me   
  
.  
  
"Hello!? We don't have all day!" Marissa interrupted, banging on the door. I immediately put the poem back into the box.  
  
"What have you got there?" Marissa asked, looking at the box as I walked into the den.  
  
"None of your business," I replied.  
  
When I was seated comfortably and the hairstylist was at work, I pulled out the box and went through it again. I picked up a white candle. Seeing it caused the memories to come rushing back.   
  
One always felt that rich people spent most of their time working to make sure they never lost their wealth. The reverse was true in Newport, or it appeared to be. We always had parties to attend every weekend be it wedding receptions, charity events, anniversary parties or just plain 'ol self-congratulatory dos. Apparently, Newportians had never heard of spending a lazy Saturday at home.   
  
On one such day, like most eleven year olds, I wasn't pleased about being dragged along to the wedding reception of people I couldn't care less about because my mother claimed they were 'important.' Frankly speaking, I would have preferred to spend the afternoon riding my horse. But I couldn't - she wanted me there. However, as soon she could, my mother left me all alone at the table so that she could get whatever it was she sought from the said 'important' people. Stuffing my face with cake only had so much appeal so I was playing with the party favors and table decorations when I felt a tap on my shoulder.  
  
I turned and was met with his sparkling blue eyes smiling back at me.  
  
"I think you dropped this," he said, handing me something.  
  
I looked down at his hand. He was holding a candle. I took it from him.  
  
"Thank you," I replied shyly.  
  
"These things suck, don't they?" I agreed with him. "You'd think they wouldn't have so many of them because it's the same faces every time, but everybody wants to outdo the last person's thing -it's quite boring." I smiled and just agreed with everything he said. "So, what are you doing here all alone?" he asked.  
  
"Well, my mother is somewhere talking to somebody about something and I am here waiting for her to return."  
  
"Well," he said, getting up from his table and coming to mine, "you can talk to me."  
  
That was it -I was in love.   
  
The years went by and he moved away to college. I'd always made a point to make sure I ran into him whenever he was back for the holidays and he was always nice to me. But I knew that the possibilities of him reciprocating my feelings were less than nil - I was a girl and he was a man. Plus, he could never see me as anything more. Back then, I wore my sister's clothes and my mother's make-up, hoping he'd notice but he never did. In fact, every time he saw me, he'd smile at me and pat me on the head like I was a little puppy. After a while, I stopped seeing him and only thought about him occasionally. As the years went by, I dated a lot of guys knowing that I had to find someone my own age to be with but regardless of what I did, my heart wouldn't comply. My head told me that he was probably married with kids, but my heart countered that I consumed his thoughts.  
  
  
  
"Can I have some water?" I asked my friend Danielle. The heat from the hair drier was burning my throat and I needed something to cool it down -it wasn't the day to fall sick.  
  
She rolled her eyes and got off the chair. "Thank God this is the last day you get to boss me around!" she rejoiced as she walked to the kitchen.  
  
I looked into the box and pulled out a ticket stub. 'Terminator 4' had been the movie I'd seen on my first date ever. The date sucked, but the movie sucked even more. I'd kept the stub because it represented a milestone in my life.  
  
My mind took me to the first movie I'd seen with him. What was it called? Les something something. I'd picked a foreign film to try to impress him. Luckily, he hated it too so we left early and went to see the latest blockbuster instead.  
  
I was in my senior year of college when I walked into his classroom. I was supposed to take Anthropology 101 to fulfill my race and ethnicity requirements but because I'd heard awful things about the professor, I'd postponed it to the last minute. Seeing him walk into the room cured the stomach bug that had been caused by being surrounded by irritating freshmen.   
  
I looked at my syllabus. Right next to 'Name:' was 'Anita Khan.' Unless I was losing my mind, that definitely wasn't someone called Anita Khan. Even though he was older, hairier and a little heavier, I could recognize him anywhere. I'd seen him in my dreams in various incarnations that even if he had developed breasts and/or needed a cane to walk, I wouldn't have been fooled.   
  
"Hello, class. Welcome to Anthropology 101, Section 3. Unfortunately, Professor Khan has had to take a leave of absence so I'll be taking over this section for the duration of this semester." He proceeded to write his name on the board and introduce the course to us. At the end of the class, I went to speak to him.  
  
"Did you grow up in Newport, California?" I asked him after I introduced myself.  
  
He looked at me suspiciously. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name. Could you please repeat it for me?"  
  
"Kaitlin Cooper."  
  
He looked surprised. "Little Kaity Cooper?"  
  
I nodded, "yes, but I am not so little anymore."  
  
He looked me over. "I can see that."  
  
From that moment, I made it my duty to speak to him every class and attend every single office hour I possibly could. Slowly but surely, I wore his defenses down to the point I was confident enough to make a move.  
  
We'd been sitting in his office one evening, eating Chinese and pretending to study even though we were really just hanging out.  
  
"How's your Kung Pao?" I asked from across his desk.  
  
"It's great."  
  
"Lucky you," I grumbled. "This General Tso's got enough corn starch to serve Budweiser for a year."  
  
He looked at my sympathetically, "that bad, huh?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Want some of mine?"  
  
I accepted his offer and as I bent to pick up the food, I caught a whiff of his cologne and decided to take the leap. As I leaned into him parting my lips, he backed away from me.  
  
"What are you doing?" he asked.  
  
"What do you think?" I pushed over the carton of rice in anger. In my twenty-odd years, I'd never in my life been rejected by a man. I'd visited Frederick's of Hollywood earlier in the week and other than the matching burgundy bra, panties and stockings I was hiding under my dress, I'd stashed some treats in my bag.  
  
"Kaitlin, we can't do this," he said.  
  
"Why the hell not? When I was a kid, there were so many stories about your exploits with all your girls. I surely didn't expect this from you. Not you of all people! You? Oh... Oh... don't tell me -you're gay. You did a David King on me and now you're gay. Is that it?" David King had been a well known playboy who'd recently come out of the closet.  
  
"Of course not. I'm not gay."  
  
"Then what the hell is the matter? I sometimes catch you looking at me, so I know you find me attractive. So what's the problem?"  
  
"It's not ethical."  
  
"What do you care about ethics? Have you forgotten who you are? What happened to the guy I knew back home?"  
  
"Kaitlin, you have to understand that was a long time ago. I'm a different person now. And I take my job too seriously to compromise it... no matter how great I think you are."  
  
"I am not jailbait for goodness sake!"  
  
"I know, but I'm your teacher."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So, I can't do this."  
  
"Give me a break, who's going to know?"  
  
"I am," he said matter-of-factly.  
  
I sat back down without the food. "You really have changed," I said quietly. "This is not the way it was supposed to be. This is so not the way it was supposed to end."  
  
"I'm sorry," was all he could manage.   
  
  
  
"Time to get dressed," Danielle said once my hair had been done. It was up in curls with a few tendrils framing my face. "You know your dress has a million buttons so the sooner we get started on it, the better."  
  
Marissa brought in the dress and was met with numerous oohs and ahhs. It had an ivory off-shoulder neckline with a princess waist that gently flared to an A-line heavy l'amour satin skirt. I stretched out my hands so they could pour me into it. As they buttoned me up, I put my hands across the flowery embroidery and let my mind wander to the first time I'd received flowers from him.   
  
I was studying alone in my apartment when I heard a knock at the door. I swung it open and saw him standing there with a dozen Carnations. For the three weeks following my rejection, I'd not spoken to him and I was a little surprised by his visit.  
  
"What are you doing here?" I asked. I was ecstatic about it but chose to pretend to be nonchalant.  
  
"Can I come in?"  
  
I complied. He handed the flowers to me right before he sat down.   
  
"What are these for?" I was surprised to find that he knew my favorite flower.  
  
"Sort of a peace offering."  
  
"For?"  
  
"For what happened that time."  
  
"More like what didn't happen," I said under my breath. "It's not your fault," I said to him. "The university has rules - you have no choice but to follow them."  
  
"But I miss you."   
  
My heart danced a thousand waltzes.  
  
"Why? Bored without little Kaitlin chasing after you?"  
  
He stood up so that we were at eye level. "That's not it. I don't think of you as little Kaitlin. I haven't thought that in a while."  
  
"So what is it?" I longed to hear some words of encouragement -anything to allow me to believe that something could happen between us.  
  
"I came here to say that these past weeks have made me realize that I like having you around."  
  
"And?"  
  
"And I want to see where this can go."  
  
"Go?" I whispered, my heart jumping into in my throat. I'd imagined this day for over nine years that now that it was happening it was like I'd been transported into a 1940s movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman.   
  
"I don't know where. That's what I hope to find out." It was a bit of a let down, he hadn't said the words I heard in my fantasies, but I was satisfied to take whatever I could get. All I cared was that it was a step in the right direction.  
  
"So where does that leave us?" I asked.  
  
He smiled at me.  
  
The next day, we went out on our first official date. For the rest of the semester, we spent every weekend together. Onlookers would have thought of us as a couple. And in many ways we were. Except in one -we didn't have sex. We didn't even fool around. Not even a little kiss. He was my teacher and I was his student so any relationship outside of the classroom had to remain platonic, even though in our hearts we knew differently.  
  
  
  
"Kaitlin, are you ready?" my mother asked, walking into the room to assess the progress. When she saw me in my dress she got teary-eyed. Of course, that turned on the water works and before we knew it, there wasn't a dry eye in sight.   
  
"You look so beautiful," my mother said, hugging me.  
  
I laughed through the tears. "Mom, not too close we don't want any smudges or wrinkles," I cautioned.  
  
She pulled back and looked at me. I did the same to her. There she was, all red-haired, big eyed and beautiful. Even though she was now relying on a bottle to keep her tresses that particular shade of red, she looked every bit as she did 20 years earlier. Plus, she was much happier. My mother was on her third husband and from what we could see, third time's a charm. For once, she'd done it right - she'd married for love. The fact that he was more loaded than a nuclear bomb didn't hurt.   
  
I remembered the first night we'd consummated our relationship. As we were in bed drinking in what had we'd just shared plus of course, still tasting one another's skin, he said, "so, what are we going to tell your mother?"  
  
This snapped me out of my post-coital bliss. "My mother? Is this the right time to talk about my mom?"  
  
He caressed my face. "We're going to have to tell them about us sometime."  
  
"I know," I murmured. Frankly speaking, at the time, I would have preferred to offer myself for human sacrifice than to talk to my mother about us. "But not today, right?"  
  
"No," he agreed, "not today. But soon."  
  
The truth was, I didn't want to deal with reality. In our own little world, he and I were a perfect couple in love. I'd graduated and was working at an accounting firm, he was working towards tenure and even though we weren't living together, I spent so little time at my apartment that I had a hard time remembering my roommate's name. However, back home in Newport, our relationship wouldn't be so warmly received. In fact, it would have put our families on the front page of the unofficial but well read underground tabloid newsletter. And my family had had enough scandal to make us eligible for induction into the Hall of Fame. So I didn't want to make things worse. In fact, at home, our relationship would have almost seemed incestuous. No, we weren't blood relatives. But our families were so intertwined both personally and professionally, and not in the 'let's join our families together to make it stronger,' kind of way that the Rockefellers and Kennedys did it, but more in the 'your husband slept with my wife's brother,' cheesy talk show kind of way.   
  
So I stalled. I'd relayed my concerns to him, but they didn't seem to phase him. He mentioned our self sufficiency as an explanation for why their reactions wouldn't matter. But that wasn't all that bothered me. Throwing tantrums, getting arrested, expulsion amongst others, were things I'd put my parents through growing up. I was through disappointing them.  
  
My father hugged me when we arrived at the church. "You look so beautiful, darling.," he said as we waited for the signal to come in.  
  
"Remember, sweetie, no matter what, I'll always be your father."  
  
I tried to stop them but my tears didn't respond. Soon after, my father's tears joined mine. If I hadn't insisted on water proof make-up, I would have needed another hour in the make-up chair.  
  
I'd always been grateful to my father. When I could postpone telling them about our relationship no longer and had the support of his parents, we approached my dad. Other than shaking his head and asking if we were sure about our relationship about a million times, he lent his support. With all that pressure, my mother had no choice but to accept it and soon after, we became Newport's most talked about scandal.   
  
  
  
My sister came out to check on us. She took one look at my face and hissed. She immediately grabbed me by the hand and hauled me into the bathroom. She took out her bag and started fixing my face.  
  
"No sister of mine is getting married looking like a deranged poodle... especially not my favorite one."  
  
I smiled. The truth was, I was her only sister. Growing up, she'd seemed to have the perfect life - beautiful boyfriends, popularity and a perfect face, but after the day I cleaned up her puke after one of her drunk episodes, it was as if the ice had been broken and we could finally see each other for what we were. And we did. Day after day, night after night, we spent time together. The more I discovered about her, the hungrier I became. It reached the point that if I was given to option to choose my siblings, I wouldn't choose anyone but her.  
  
Which was why I trusted her when she asked me to join her on a sisterly shopping spree in Paris. Of course, I'd been pleased because other that the wonderful clothing we were going to get, it gave me an opportunity to show off my 2 years of college French, which I later discovered was quite minimal. She'd wanted to buy a few souvenirs so we decided to meet at the Eiffel Tower restaurant for dinner. When I gave the maitre'd my name I was quickly whisked into a private room overlooking the entire city. From my table, I could see the Champs Elysees, the Seine and other Parisian landmarks. I was so engrossed in the beautiful scenery that I didn't even notice that someone had entered the room till the lights dimmed. I turned around and saw him. And then I saw it. I saw him on his knee holding it. It was gleaming so brightly that I almost felt like reaching for my sunglasses. I looked closer at it and saw that it was princess cut and set in a platinum band -four carats of it. I looked at him and waited. He looked back at me and only said those two words: Marry me.  
  
"Ready?" my father asked.   
  
He crooked his arm so I could put mine in his. As practiced, the organ started playing as we walked into the room. Thirty minutes earlier, I had been sure that butterflies were going pop out of my mouth, but as I walked through the crowd of people I knew; the Cohens, the Roberts, the Andersons and everybody else, I'd never felt as sure of anything as I did that minute. When we got to the altar and the preacher said all he wanted, he turned to me and asked the most important question of my life thus far:  
  
"Kaitlin Cooper, do you take this man, Luke Ward, as your lawfully wedded husband?"  
  
I looked directly into the eyes across mine and saw us making love under the moonlight in Venice; his shaking hand holding mine as I gave birth to Allie; moving into our first house; getting over our worst fight; helping him through his father's death; attending our son Jason's wedding; playing the fool at the nursing home and all I could say was, "I do." 


End file.
